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FACTBOX-Mauritania holds presidential elections

23 Apr 2009 14:07:26 GMT
Source: Reuters

April 23 (Reuters) - Mauritania's military ruler General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz will find his path to victory in June presidential elections clear after a Wednesday deadline passed without a serious opposition figure registering.

The polls are the first since he ousted the Saharan Islamic state's first elected leader in an army takeover last August.

Here are some key facts about Mauritania:

ECONOMY: Main products are fish, livestock and iron ore, although offshore oil reserves may promise a better economy.

-- State-controlled SNIM is the world's seventh largest supplier of iron ore to the international market, and contributes 12.5 per cent of the country's GDP and around 40 percent of Mauritania's export earnings.

-- The military coup has led some foreign donors to reduce aid to Mauritania, and shaken the confidence of international investors who have ramped up their commitments in the country's mining and oil sectors since democratic elections in 2007.

-- Mauritania began producing crude oil in early 2006, forecasting output of 75,000 barrels per day (bpd) from the offshore Chinguetti field opened by Australia's Woodside <WPL.AX> and now operated by Malaysia's Petronas. -- Difficulties extracting the oil from the field's complex reservoir structure have resulted in Chinguetti's output falling below 15,000 bpd. But other companies, including French major Total <TOTF.PA> are prospecting in other parts of the large, mostly desert, country and hopes were high.

-- Mauritania also mines copper and gold producing 33,070 tonnes of copper and 202,000 ounces of gold in 2008.

SANCTIONS:

-- The African Union imposed sanctions in Feb. 2009 after the military junta seized power in Aug. 2008.

-- The sanctions include the denial of visas, travel restrictions and the freezing of assets belonging to all individuals, both civilian and military, whose activities maintained what the AU called the "unconstitutional status quo".

-- The European Union already suspended non-humanitarian aid.

COUNTRY DETAILS:

POPULATION: Almost all Mauritania's 3.3 million people are Sunni Muslims and it is officially an Islamic republic.

ETHNICITY: Moors of Arab-Berber origin form about 70 percent of the population. Most black African inhabitants are from the Fulani and Soninke ethnic groups.

GEOGRAPHY: Most of Mauritania is desert. It is almost twice as big as former colonial power France, but has little more than 800 km (500 miles) of paved roads.

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